| When: | 9/17 - 9/18/2005 |
| Where: | New River Gorge, WV |
| Who: | drove up with Lisa Lorenzin |
| various folks from the XTR group | |
| What (9/17): | rappelling and ascending at Ram's Head (Beauty Mountain area) |
| What (9/18): | rappelling and ascending at Bridge Buttress |
Got hooked up with the eXTreme Rappels (XTR) group through Peter Hertl. Borrowed vertical gear from local grotto members. Drove up to the New Friday night and found the Passages to Adventure campground. There was a bunch of BSing around the campfire before we turned in for the night.
Got up just after 7am. Breakfast was at the Western Pancake House just down the road from the campground.
Went to Ram's Head on Saturday. I did 5 rappels and 2 climbs. Not bad for my first time using the gear. The hardest and most puckering part was leaning back over the edge to start the rappels. No real problems once I got going on the rope. Also got stung by a bee which hurt a lot.
Dinner was at a Mexican place just a little ways off Hwy 19 (to the east) a couple stoplights south of Fayetteville. Back at camp, there was more BSing around the campfire and short round of butt darts. Ends up that I seem to be pretty good at the game. Stayed up talking until Lisa was fast asleep leaning on me so I roused her just enough to get her into the tent.
Sunday morning we woke up to fog and damp. It was hard to tell if it was drizzling or just condensing fog. Broke camp and headed back to the Pancake House for breakfast.
Lisa and I were debating whether to do a little more rappelling or just head over to spend the day climbing. Because it was damp, it was a little easier to decide to join the group for more rapelling. We all headed over to the Bridge Buttress. Wonderfully simple approach. I got in 3 rappels and 2 climbs before Lisa and I headed on over to get in a little bit of climbing at the Tattoo Wall.